I've actually been using a fully hosted dev environment for about a year and a half now for my side projects and it works really well. I started by using Cloud9

I've actually been using a fully hosted dev environment for about a year and a half now for my side projects and it works really well. I started by using Cloud9, then after I had some difficulties with the switch to AWS Cloud9, I spun up a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet with my entire dev system on it. I use vim and tmux to replicate the classic IDE feel of paned windows. I keep a very minimal tmux config and vimrc so it's super-compatible across machines. DO does cheap backups for me so in case I hose something I can quickly restore, my code is on GitHub so it can be pulled back down, and I can get to it from basically any machine I own with nothing installed locally. Just the ability to SSH is all I need. I've connected from a Chromebook and an iPad/iPhone variously to do small bug fixes and quick push to production while I was away. I can get away with a cheaper/older dev machine because my local specs don't matter. If my tests are going to run long... who cares? It's not running on my machine, so I can close the lid and walk away if I need to, and it will keep running.